


when you're me and i'm you

by sneezing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bodyswap, Humor, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Sexual Tension, Tags will be updated, should i continue this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-09-09 14:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8894194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneezing/pseuds/sneezing
Summary: Keith and Lance switch bodies and chaos ensues.





	1. Chapter 1

Lance expected a lot of weird things to come out of living in space for an extended period of time. Nothing could possibly top flying a giant, mechanical lion that forms into an even bigger mechanical man to defeat an empire of bat cats right?

Wrong.

The minute he woke up with the back of his neck feeling sweaty and stifled, Lance knew something was wrong. He sat up in a rumpled mess of sheets and noted immediately that his room did not smell like his room, which should have been an immediate red flag. He adjusted the crick in his neck and yawned, carding his hands through his hair. His long, fluffy...

Lance froze in his actions, drawing back and repeating the motion, slower this time. Since when had his hair been so fluffy?

‘Have my bangs always been this long?’ he thought groggily, the fog of sleep still clouding his mind.

He rolled out of bed, feeling even more disgruntled being awake than usual, and made a beeline for the bathroom. It was quiet when he crossed the hall and Lance knew that he must have been the first awake (another red flag, Lance was never the first awake).

Lance flicked the light on, looked into the mirror… and screamed. Dark eyes, messy black hair and a mullet greeted him in his reflection. Keith’s reflection? He screamed again when he heard his voice. Keith’s voice?

His mind was a chorus of ‘What the fuck?’ and he groped at his own face (Keith’s face?) as if to check if this was just some messed up fever dream.

His first instinct following this was to book it out of the bathroom and sprint down the halls to his room, shrieking the entire time. He practically tore the automatic door open and flung himself onto his bed, his actual bed and grabbed his body (god this was so weird), shaking it awake. He needed to know if Keith was in there.

His body’s eyes flew open and there’s about five seconds of stunned silence before the screaming starts again, and this time it was both of them.

“What the fuck, who the fuck are you?” Keith in Lance’s body yelled before blinking in confusion at his own voice. “Who the fuck am I?”

“Keith is that you in there? It’s me, Lance!” Lance said frantically, shaking himself by the shoulders again.

“Lance? What the - why are you - what the fuck is going on?” Keith said, looking equally freaked out.

“I don’t know, but you’re me and I’m you and what do we do?” Lance whimpered, the reality of the situation setting in.

“I’m… you?” Keith whispered, reaching up to touch his face, run his hands through his much shorter hair, “Holy shit.”

“I know. What do we do?” Lance asked nervously.

“I don’t know, how the fuck did this even happen?” Keith groaned, shifting to sit up.

“Does this mean I have to pilot the red lion now?” Lance mused, “That might be kinda cool.”

“I think we should probably be more concerned about what happens to forming Voltron when we’re like this.” Keith replied seriously, and it was really weird for Lance to see what his own expressions looked like from an outside perspective.

“Should we tell the others?” Lance ventured. He wondered how the others would react or if they would even believe them.

It was at this point when they had both somewhat calmed down that they realized the position they were in, Lance basically straddling Keith’s lap while grasping his shoulders. Lance cleared his throat and moved so he was standing.

“Uh, sorry about that.” 

There was a slight flush on Keith’s face the next time he spoke.

“Whatever,” he said cooly, “We should probably let the others know if this is going to affect our ability to form Voltron. If this is going to get in the way of our teamwork with the rest of them, they have a right to know.”

“O-ok.” Lance replied, sounding less than confident to even his own ears. His brain filled with thoughts of how the heck to explain this bizarre situation to their friends. He came up empty.

Twenty minutes later, everyone had woken up and gathered at the dining table for their daily breakfast of mysterious green stuff. Keith and Lance sat next to each other, their servings of goop untouched, waiting for a good time to bring up their problem to the rest of the team.

Keith cleared his throat.

“Uh, guys? Lance and I have something to tell you.” Keith said, immediately cringing at his delivery, knowing how strange that must have sounded coming out of Lance’s mouth.

Everyone looked up at that, Hunk pausing mid chew with green still surrounding his mouth.

“What do you mean ‘Lance and I’, Lance? You’re Lance.” Hunk questioned.

“Well you see the thing about that is,” Lance cut in, “he’s not. I’m actually Lance.”

“What.” Pidge said flatly.

“It’s true I swear this isn’t a prank ok, I woke up way too early this morning and my neck was all sweaty so I went the the bathroom, looked in the mirror and guess what I saw? A mullet. A freaking mullet. On my head. Do you know how -”

“Ok, ok we get it, that’s definitely Lance in there.” Hunk interjected, “Only Lance would be so obsessed with Keith’s mullet.”

Lance sputtered, offended that his best friend would do him like that. 

“Children, children. Calm down.” Shiro stepped in like the space parent he was. “Can either of you think of anything that happened recently that could have caused this?” 

There was a moment of silence as everyone went through their memories. It definitely wasn’t easy considering the sheer amount of unusual things that tended to happen in outer space and on alien planets. 

“Do you think it could’ve been something you guys ate on that one planet with the weird fruit the other day?” Pidge asked.

“No, it couldn’t be. We all ate those, remember? Shouldn’t this be happening to all of us then?” Keith dismissed.

They sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

Suddenly a memory shot to the front of Lance’s mind, a snippet of a battle that happened a few days earlier. They had all been fighting individually, taking out a fleet of Galra battleships when Keith and Lance both ended up taking a hit from a Galran light cannon. It shocked them temporarily, but neither had sustained significant injury so they shrugged it off when the mission was over. Clearly the ray had had other side effects. 

“Keith! Remember that weird ray we both got hit by a couple days ago? Maybe that’s what did this to us.” Lance exclaimed.

“Seriously? So this is a Galra thing?” Keith groaned. “How the heck do we figure out how to reverse this?”

Allura spoke up, “If I may, perhaps we should get the two of you into the scanners in the infirmary and see if any of your vitals show us anything.”

“Good idea, Allura”, Shiro said. “You two really should have said something if you were hit by an alien ray during battle though.” He frowned, looking every bit the concerned leader.

“Sorry, dad.” Lance teased, slipping into a carefree grin despite the potentially serious situation.

“Please don’t call Shiro dad in my body.”

Pidge muffled a cough behind their hand, “Kinky.”

Keith groaned again as they all headed towards the infirmary and Lance knew that no matter how weird this was, he was gonna have fun with this while it lasts. Part of him felt kind of giddy at the thought of being Keith if only for a little while. Lance would never admit it out loud, but Keith was everything he aspired to be. The guy was an amazing pilot and somehow managed to make a mullet look hot. Not that that meant anything though, he was just jealous that Keith was kind of cool, that’s all.

Lost in his thoughts, Lance didn’t even notice when they stopped in front of some large pods, very similar in appearance to the healing cryopods that he was already familiar with. He and Keith stepped into two and the pods shut. Light filled the pods as they scanned over the vital signs of their occupants before transmitting them onto a large holographic screen, their teammates quickly gathering around it.

Coran fiddled with some buttons on a panel underneath the screen. “Well everything looks normal, for the most part. Can’t say I see anything particularly odd about their vitals.”

Keith and Lance stepped out of the pods, frowning at the screen. 

Keith’s brow furrowed in frustration. “Well if it’s nothing physical, what the heck are we supposed to do to reverse this?”

Coran stepped forward, fiddling with his mustache in contemplation. “Perhaps we should give it a few days and see if it goes away on it’s own. Not the best solution, but we don’t exactly have much to go on.”

“As much as I don’t want to leave this as is and do nothing, Coran has a point.” Shiro muttered. “Maybe there’s something in the library on how to fix this.”

Allura stepped forward. “Excellent idea, Shiro. I’ll get to looking immediately. As for Keith and Lance, you two just go about your usual lives as best as you can while we try to figure this out. Don’t strain yourselves though, who knows what other effects this might have on your bodies.”

Lance could tell that Keith did not like the sound of that by the look on his face. He wasn’t too sure how he felt about being in Keith’s body for too much longer. Didn’t that mean he’d have to see Keith’s body at least partially naked while changing clothes? Going to the bathroom and showering was a thing too. God, this was going to be so awkward.

“Don’t worry guys, Pidge and I will do our best to come up with something to switch you guys back if Allura can’t find anything.” Hunk said reassuringly even though he was still probably just as weirded out.

Shiro left with Coran to help Allura look through the extensive library of Altean literature after making sure Keith and Lance would let them know if anything else happened or if anything changed. She was probably going to need some help sorting through thousands of years worth of books, after all.

Lance and Keith left the infirmary together, figuring that sticking together for the duration of whatever this was was probably for the best, though Keith was grumbling the whole time about ‘Not being used to feeling so gangly and awkward.’. Lance made sure to sock him in the arm for that one, firing back that he sure as hell didn’t want to be stuck with a mullet for the rest of his life.

As the arguing duo left the room, only Pidge and Hunk remained. 

“Ten bucks says they realize their gay feelings for each other through all this and make out.” Pidge said, catching Hunk’s attention.

Hunk grinned, eyes lighting up at the challenge. “Twenty says they’ll do it while still in each other’s bodies.”

“You’re on.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Lance struggled to catch up with Keith as he made long strides down the hallway, unsure as to where the other could possibly be going. 

“Yo Keith, where are you even going?” 

“To train.”

“What? Training? Now? Didn’t Allura tell us not to do anything strenuous?”

Keith exhaled through his nose in frustration. “Well it’s still early, can’t just waste time doing nothing. Unlike some people.” He mumbled the last part under his breath.

“Hey what, I do not waste time doing nothing. I train… sometimes?” The last part came out sounding more like a question.

“Yeah, only when Shiro makes you. If he and Allura didn’t make you train, you’d totally just sit on the couch all day watching Altean chick flicks you don’t even understand.”

Lance said nothing to that, continuing his pace to keep up with Keith. If the idiot wanted to kick his own ass training, then fine. But he was gonna be there to make sure that Keith didn’t hurt himself. Or technically, hurt Lance’s body? Yeah, that was it, Lance just didn’t want his body to get messed up, screw Keith.

And Lance, for one, happened to like trashy Altean chick flicks if only for the fact that they reminded him of home in a strange way. He had lots of memories of sitting on the couch with his mom and sisters as they hogged the tv to watch Desperate Housewives. The fact that he could find a little piece of nostalgia all the way out here in space was comforting to him. He wondered if Keith had any memories like that from Earth, if he had anything to miss. He lived in a shack alone in the middle of nowhere, so did he even really care where he was as long as he had shelter?

They stopped once they reached the training room, door sliding open to let them in. Keith walked right in, activating his bayard. He groaned when Lance’s blue blaster appeared in his hand instead of his sword. Right, different bodies, different weapons.

“Gimme my sword, I can’t train with this thing.” Keith said, holding his hand out.

Lance smirked. “What, you think you can’t train just as well with my weapon? Too chicken to try? You worried you’ll wipe out and fail?”

Keith bristled, taking the bait. “I’m just worried that this dumb thing’ll make training way too easy for me.”

“Oh yeah? Think you could take me with my own weapon?” Lance continued, activating Keith’s bayard.

“Oh you are on.” Keith said, taking several steps towards Lance with a fire in his eyes.

All at once, they lunged at each other, blaster firing, sword swinging and… it was a complete mess. Keith clearly still wasn’t used to Lance’s longer limbs and it showed in the way they flailed all over the place as he ran. Lance… well Lance clearly just didn’t know how to use Keith’s sword, aimlessly swinging it around his head, hoping to connect with something. Looking at them, you really wouldn’t peg them as ‘noble defenders of the universe’. It truly was a ridiculous sight.

Eventually, they tired themselves out, collapsing to the floor, panting and sweating. It had seemed like the battle was over, but neither Keith nor Lance were willing to give up just yet.

“I bet - I bet you still couldn’t beat me at hand to hand combat.” Keith panted.

“Is that a challenge, Mulletface?” Lance fired back.

Keith stood up, dropping his weapon and getting into a fighting stance. “Yes.”

Keith only had seconds to widen his eyes before Lance launched himself bodily at him, kicking and shoving in his own definition of hand to hand combat.

“Lance what the fuck?!” Keith shrieked, thrashing his arms to defend himself.

“You said hand to hand combat, I’m gonna give you hand to hand combat!”

“This - isn’t what I meant!”

Keith brought a hand up to tug at Lance’s hair, pulling his head back and planting his feet flat against Lance’s midsection, pushing him away. He cringed at the fact that he was essentially beating himself up.

Lance gritted his teeth. “Doesn’t all this hair ever get in the way during battle?”

“No it does not, because I’m actually a competent fighter.” Keith snarked.

Lance’s eyes gleamed. “How bout I do you a favour and cut it?”

“You wouldn’t fucking dare.” Keith said, narrowing his eyes.

In the end the threats amounted to nothing because the door slid open, revealing a very irate looking Shiro. Keith and Lance froze in place, still locked together in combat but both now sporting a very ‘oh shit’ look in their eyes.

Shiro strode right up to them and seized them both by the ear like a mother who was sick and tired of her children bickering all the time.

“Children,” he began in a deceptively calm tone, “what have I said multiple times about fighting?”

Keith and Lance remained silent, looking at the ground like scolded kids.

Shiro sighed, releasing them. “That’s what I thought. Go get in the showers, you both reek.”

They hightailed it out the door, not wanting to anger Shiro further. Shiro was fucking terrifying when he was upset, enough to give anyone memories of a furious mother.

“Maybe we should be calling him space mom.” Lance joked once they were out of earshot.

Keith remained silent, eyes trained on the ground.

“Hey are you upset about earlier? I’m sorry dude, I wasn’t actually going to cut your hair, you know that, right?”

Keith said nothing, but stopped in his tracks. “Lance.”

“How the fuck are we supposed to shower like this?”

Realization dawned on Lance’s face and he reddened at the thought of Keith seeing his body naked. Shit, he didn’t want Keith to see him naked. He’d definitely laugh at how skinny and awkward Lance was compared to himself. Keith was probably all toned and beautiful under his armour, especially while he was all sweaty from training and - and Lance was everything but attractive compared to Keith. His mood quickly went south.

“Um, maybe we should just mutually agree to not look at anything while we’re in there?” Lance tried.

Keith didn’t look convinced, but what choice did they have? Stay sweaty for as long as this lasted? Never shower again?

Keith nodded and gave a sigh. 

‘Great, I bet Keith’s gonna be all grossed out if he does see anything.’ Lance thought.  
“Keith, I mean it, don’t look at anything.”

“And why would I? You don’t look at my body!”

“Pfft as if I would.”

He totally would though, but he didn’t for the sake of respecting Keith’s privacy. While he was in the shower, Lance made sure to exfoliate. Hell, he even shaved Keith’s legs (very careful to avoid looking at anything, ahem, down south) because he liked the feeling of being silky smooth. He exited the shower stall in a cloud of steam and got dressed in a tank top and some shorts (that were kind of tight on him now that he was Keith) before returning to his room and moisturising his face and legs. 

He sat on his bed and briefly wondered what Keith was doing, but didn’t get to linger on that for long because about two seconds later, the man himself practically busted his door down and let himself in. He was dressed in an old shirt and some sweatpants that were just a teeny bit on the baggy side.(They were too short though, which was kind of hilarious.)

Lance raised his arm in a casual greeting. “Sup Keith.”

“Hey, Lance. Why is your - I mean my face so shiny? Wait a second, did you shave my legs?” He raised an eyebrow as he looked over his own body.

“Gotta keep up my skincare regi - wait a second. I’m you and you’re… Goddammit Keith you didn’t moisturise my skin did you? It looks like sandpaper.” He lamented, grabbing Keith’s face and leaning in close.

“Here come with me.”

“Uh Lance - hey wait what?”

He drew back and grabbed Keith by the arm over to his desk. He reached into the clutter and grabbed a bottle, pumping out some lotion and smoothing it over Keith’s face. Keith’s flush at the intimacy of the action and their proximity went unnoticed by Lance, too focused on the task at hand. Neither of them noticed when the door slid open.

“Lance, Keith, it’s time fo -” Hunk paused, taking in the scene before him.

Lance and Keith were pressed close together, Keith’s face cupped in Lance’s palms in what seemed to be a loving caress. At the sound of Hunk’s voice, they both snapped their heads towards the door, eyes wide. Lance drew his hands back as if burned and settled them awkwardly at his sides while Keith looked away, blushing harder than before if that was even possible.

Hunk couldn’t hide his shit-eating grin. “I’ll just go back to the dining hall. Lunch is ready by the way.”

With that, he was gone as soon as he came, practically skipping down the halls. He strolled into the dining hall where everyone was already gathered and took a seat next to Pidge. Pidge took one look at Hunk’s grin and raised a curious eyebrow.

“Dude, I am so going to win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's me again. I got v inspired to write another chapter cause of the amazing comments I got on the last one. Lemme know what you guys think! Once again, this fic has literally no direction and I have no idea what I'm doing so... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another one

Lance woke up in the morning feeling… odd. He was so awake, immediately, when normally he had to kick his own ass out of bed to accomplish anything productive for the day. He stretched and yawned, feeling energised enough to get out of bed and Do Things ™. He crossed the hall into the bathrooms to brush his teeth and wash his face… and just about had a heart attack. 

‘Oh right. This.’ He thought, putting a hand on his chest to calm his racing heart.

In the mirror was a reminder that the last twenty four hours hadn’t been some sort of horrific dream crafted to torment him in the worst ways. Sighing, he stuck his toothbrush in his mouth and gave up on having a good day. He was humming a little tune and brushing away when something caught his eye. 

‘Is that… stubble?’

He leaned in closer to the mirror and inspected Keith’s face. Sure enough, there was stubble there. Lance’s own face (or really, any part of his body) never grew very much hair, and it was always slow to grow back, so this was new. It was kind of really nice getting to see these little bits of Keith that nobody else knew about, and something about Keith’s pretty face growing stubble so quickly was adorable. He had also learned by this point that Keith was a morning person through the fact that his internal clock was waking him up before anyone else.

Lance washed his face and shaved before continuing on to his daily skincare regimen.

‘Might as well introduce Keith to the wonders of good skincare while I’m in here.’ He mused.

Lance heard footsteps approaching and twisted to see who it was. A sleepy looking Shiro made his way up to the sink next to him and splashed his face with water.

Lance felt a catlike grin take over his face. “Sup, daddio.”

Shiro whipped his head up violently and stared Lance in the face like he had just ripped his clothes off and professed his undying love for him.

“Keith, what.”

Lance had to fight off the cackles that threatened to wrack his body at any second. “Lance. I’m Lance, remember?” 

“Oh thank god. Also can you please not do that while you’re in Keith’s body.” Shiro’s face wore a look of ‘please stop, I’m too old for this.’.

“You got it, dad.” Lance winked and pointed finger guns at him, backing out of the bathroom, cackling as Shiro groaned.

\--------

Keith groaned, feeling his heavy eyelids lifting, revealing the dark expanse of his room. What time was it? It had to be some ungodly hour to have Keith feeling so groggy. He sat up in his bunk and glanced at the digital clock embedded in the wall to his left.

1pm

“What the fuck?” Keith yelled, scrambling to get out of bed.

How had he slept in so late? Keith was a morning person, he didn’t just sleep in. He got his answer when his scrambling tangled him up in the sheets, encasing him in an inescapable cocoon of hell. Wait a second, he was still Lance wasn’t he? He carded his hands through his hair and confirmed that, yes, yes he was.

He jerked, trying to get out of the human spiderweb he’d damned himself to, tipping out of the bed and falling flat on his ass.

‘Ow.’

Why did that hurt so much? Keith finally freed himself and stood up, reaching down to rub at his sore ass. Wait. Lance’s ass. 

‘It really is as flat as it looks.’ Keith mused as he felt up his butt, grateful that no one had been around to witness his little moment of human failure. It was kind of cute, in a way that Lance’s ass was so flat. These were the thoughts of a boy so hopelessly infatuated with someone that he thought everything about them was adorable.

At this point, Keith figured that if he wanted to get anything done today, he’d have to power his way through his morning (or afternoon in this case) routine. He flew down the hall and got ready in record time, shoved some food in his face in the kitchen and raced over to the training room to work on his combat skills. ‘You can never be too prepared for battle’, was his reasoning.

The door slid open with a hiss and to Keith’s surprise, the first thing he saw was Lance engaged in combat with a training bot. He stood in the doorway, silently watching as Lance wielded his sword much more proficiently than he had the last time Keith had seen him using it. It seemed like Lance had to be a hell of a fast learner to have adapted to a new body and a new weapon so quickly. Keith was in awe, his heart feeling funny at the knowledge that Lance had bothered to try and make the most of their situation despite his usual air of carefree abandon.  
Lance cared a lot more about a lot of things than he let on. 

Keith stepped into the room when Lance ended the training sequence, panting with exertion and sweat rolling down his temples. Looking closer he noticed… something different about his hair.

“Lance, did you braid my hair?” Keith questioned.

Lance whirled around in shock, not having noticed the door opening or Keith coming in. “Keith! How long have you been there?”

Lance rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, as if embarrassed to have been caught taking training so seriously. He reached up to touch the little braid he’d formed with the back of Keith’s hair. Keith’s hair was uneven in length, so bits stuck out at the top and framed his flushed face. It was still weird, seeing himself like this, but knowing Lance was in there made things different.

“Yeah, your hair was getting in the way so I braided it. I used to braid my sisters’ hair all the time, so it’s kind of nice, having someone’s hair to braid.”

“Oh. Does it… help? With missing them, I mean.”

“Yeah, a little.” Lance said with fond eyes.

“When this is all over, you could - you know. You could braid my hair if you wanted?” Keith offered.

“Really? You know, if you wanted me to style your hair for you, all you had to do was ask.” Lance teased.

Keith bristled, embarrassed that he’d offered something so dumb in the first place. A flush dark enough to rival Lance’s exhausted one took over his face. “Forget I said anything, idiot.”

“No, no, I’m sorry Keith. That’d be nice, I’d really like that.”

Keith humph’d childishly and turned away from Lance, pouting. “Nope, too late, I rescind my offer.”

“Aww Keeeeiiiith, I’m sorry, let me braid your luscious, silky locks.” Lance whined, sidling up to Keith.

“Lance, what the fuck.”

Seriously, was Lance trying to kill him? 

‘Stop being so adorable.’ Keith thought. ‘My heart can’t take it.’

The door slid open once more, revealing the green paladin, looking equal parts happy and smug.

“Hey guys. Allura and Coran say they might have found something about this whole body swapping thingy in the library. Come on.” They chirped, leaving as quickly as they came.

Exchanging slightly worried glances, Keith and Lance went after their fellow paladin, both eager to finally learn something about this whole mess. What could be the solution? How was this even physically possible? All the questions they hadn’t been able to ask before resurfaced and swam around in their minds. And why did Keith feel… disappointed? If this was all coming to an end soon, did that mean he no longer had any excuses to hang around Lance? He suddenly wished he had a close bond with Lance like the one the blue paladin shared with Hunk. It’d be nice to be able to enjoy his company without the guise of a non-existent rivalry. Keith felt his heart sink lower. 

Did he... have feelings for Lance? And why did this thought scare him so much?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all da comments on last chapter, guys! You are all da best *finger guns* Updates might get a little slower from here on out, but I'll still be writing for this, so stick around!


	4. Chapter 4

The library, as it turned out, was more of a giant supercomputer in a dedicated room of the castle. Lance was a little disappointed, to be honest. He was wondering what Altean books would have looked like, if they would have borne any resemblance to the books they had back on Earth. Pidge on the other hand, had practically swooned at the sight of the massive piece of technology.

Lance and Keith had entered the room to find the remaining paladins already gathered there with Allura and Coran. 

“So did you guys find out how to fix this?” Keith rushed out, looking impatient as he fidgeted by Lance’s side.

“Well, not exactly, but we did have a look through the logs and it looks like this isn’t the first time this has happened,” Coran quipped, fiddling with his moustache.

Keith deflated next to Lance with a sigh. He looked like he wanted nothing more than for things to be back to normal.

‘Guess he must really hate being me,’ Lance thought dejectedly, ‘he could at least pretend I don’t disgust him.’

“So if it’s happened before, how did they un-swap themselves?” Lance asked, confused.

“Unfortunately, I have no answer for that,” Allura frowned, “all it said in the logs was that the condition wore off in time and not to attempt to manually switch your minds back or risk scrambling your brains permanently.”

Lance’s shoulders drooped.

“Hang on, so was that all you guys found out? There’s nothing we can do?” he asked.

“I’m afraid that’s everything there was on the matter,” Allura shrugged.

Shiro spoke up, “Well if that’s everything we know, then all we can do for now is wait and see what happens. Keith, Lance, maybe you two should focus on team building exercises.”

“Yeah, if you’re going to be like this for a while, you should learn how to work together. Who knows, this might just be a blessing in disguise,” Hunk added innocently as Pidge fought to keep a smirk off their face.

The yellow and green paladins left the room together, Hunk to perform some maintenance on his lion and Pidge to go mess with some Galra tech they had acquired on a mission. When the door shut behind them, the two paladins side eyed each other with looks of equal mischief, saying nothing, but understanding each other perfectly. 

Sensing that there wasn’t anything left for him to do here, Coran excused himself to do a routine check of the castle’s equipment with a short, “It won’t maintain itself you know!”

“Well it looks like we’re going to be stuck together for a bit longer, huh Keith?” Lance attempted to sound lighthearted, but he could see the conflicted look on Keith’s face, and wow did he actually look like that when he was deep in thought? Weird.

“Yeah,” was the red paladin’s only response as he made to leave the room with an undecipherable expression on his face.

“Uh, Keith? Where are you going? Wait up!” Lance called, jogging after him.

As soon as the door hissed shut, Shiro turned to Allura with a frown on his face, “You didn’t tell them everything, did you?” 

“Not exactly, though what little else we did find won’t help them.” Allura responded.

Shiro could sense that Allura was hiding something, but that she wasn’t lying. He was curious though, what could be so important that she would deliberately not tell the two people most directly affected by the situation?

Allura sighed, “I did not tell them the whole truth in case it caused animosity between them.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

“I know of only one case of this occurring before, a long, long time ago. Apparently the swap is over with very shortly unless…” she trailed off, looking hesitant.

“Unless what?” Shiro urged.

“Unless those affected are concealing strong emotions towards the other. I know Keith and Lance aren’t on the best of terms at the moment, but I did not think it to be this severe,” she sighed once more.

“I fear for your ability to form Voltron if their disagreements escalate,” she continued, looking very worried.

Logically, once the paladins had resolved the feelings between them, they would go back to normal, but Allura feared for the effect that this would have on their already strained relationship.

Realisation dawned on Shiro's face and he barely held back laughter at the genuinely concerned and grave expression on Allura’s face as she went on.

“Oh I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that, Princess.” Shiro assured her, unable to hold back his smile this time.

Keith told Shiro everything, and while that didn’t include the details of his crush on Lance, Shiro knew that there was no way someone could talk about another person so much and so adoringly without harbouring feelings for them. Keith’s annoyed front hadn’t worked on Shiro and he saw right through the younger paladin. It was kind of cute how smitten with Lance he was.

“Why is that?” she asked, confused.

“They do have strong feelings for each other… of a sort. But it’s definitely not hate if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

“Really? That’s a relief, I was so worried that this whole situation was going to make them even more upset at each other.” Allura said, seeming to relax, “So if they don’t dislike each other, why haven’t they switched back yet?”

“You’ll see,” he said mysteriously as he left the room as well, leaving Allura wondering what the heck he knew that she didn’t.

 

/

 

“You’re going to train? Now?” Lance sounded incredulous. He struggled to keep up with the red paladin’s stride and internally cursed his now shorter legs.

“Is that a problem?” Keith fired back, sounding frustrated. “We could be attacked at literally any moment and who knows what’ll happen with us in our current… condition.”

Keith had a point, but he was missing the big picture, there were far more important matters at hand. Combat training would only get them so far in the instance of an attack if they couldn’t pilot their lions.

“Keith, buddy,” Lance inhaled deeply and rested a hand on Keith’s shoulder, feeling him slow down a little, “you do realise that we might have to form Voltron at some point and we have no idea whether we can still pilot our lions. We’d be pretty fucked if the Galra decided to come after us now.”

Keith halted in his brisk walk at Lance’s words, feeling like an idiot for not realising the single most important thing they’d have to do might be impossible now.

“Shit. You think we’ll have to swap lions?” 

Lance balked a little at that. None of the paladins had attempted to pilot another lion, hell, none of them knew if it was even possible. It was very possible that the different personalities of the lions would make piloting one of them a very unique experience to the others. Of course, none of this would matter if Keith and Lance were able to remain piloting their respective lions.

“Well, we don’t know if it’ll come to that until we try, right?” Lance tried to sound hopeful as he fiddled with his braided hair nervously, but he didn’t want to think about his lion accepting Keith with open arms and casting him aside. Logically he knew that Blue wouldn’t be so cruel, but the ugly insecurity deep inside him grew every time he screwed up in battle and needed help from the rest of the team. Keith was a far better pilot and surely Blue would see that too.

“You’re right. I should have thought about that too. I guess I was just so preoccupied by trying to do everything I would do normally that I forgot I’m not me.” Keith sounded flustered, and he was. He was being impulsive again and he knew it. If it wasn’t for Lance bringing him back to reality and making him see the bigger picture, he’d be rushing headfirst into everything he did again and burdening the team when they inevitably had to pick up after him.

The hand left Keith’s shoulder and took his hand instead, leading him to the hangars where the lions were. His own hand felt calloused in comparison now that he had Lance’s baby soft skin, and he felt the corners of his lips quirk up. He felt just a little ridiculous for thinking that he’d have to start taking Lance’s skincare advice more seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a mess and I am a mess. Sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> There it is. Idk why I even wrote this, but I guess I just love to suffer. Should I continue this? What do you guys think? Vote now on your cellphones.


End file.
